Colleges should just get rid of the application essay

[Anonymous]

This thread is so full of privilege. You know that most students don’t have parents paying for prep and coaching, right? You think everyone is doing it because you are in a bubble.

[Anonymous]

And because it is the norm at the majority of schools regularly discussed on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been the interviewer for postgrad positions and trained university students in how to interview well.

The essay is best used as a step-off for the interview. You ask students more details about situations they referenced, ask them to expand on the connections they drew, and the like. It is obvious pretty quickly which essays were written with passion from the heart, and which ones the supposed writers were barely familiar with.

You can definitely still rig it. There are people who know to study their own essays and prepare. But it's hard to get that to hold up for repeated questions, especially if you dig down into the meat of it.

This does not apply to top 10 schools because alums do almost all the interviews and do not get the apps or grades. ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the kid who had a tutor for every class and summer school. That is a HIGH motivated child. Very rare for that age group.

Met a lot of kids like that at HPY in the 80s, then observed it as a parent. The idea is to get ahead on all the hard classes of its a repeat. Nearly impossible not to have a high GPA. Kids were not highly motivated. It just the way the family did things. They did not even know it was weird until maybe 10th grade. Why are all these kids enrolled in summer school at the wrong big 3 when they could take it at their own school and no one is putting it on their transcript.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who says they put a lot of weight on it?

Why not also toss out GPA (maybe they had a tutor) or SAT/ACT scores because they may have prepped?

Admissions departments aren't grading them the way a teacher would, they are looking to see what the student can reveal about him or herself or how they think.

If your essay was slapped together quickly, with or without help, it will show.

The difference is basically no one's kid is getting tutored for every subject through all four years of high school. And even SAT tutoring can only really raise a score by so much. But it is entirely possible for someone else to completely write an applicant's essay without a college knowing about it. And for what it's worth, when my husband was in college, he wrote an essay for his girlfriend who was still in HS, and she got into UVA with it, so I'm not really buying this idea that colleges can really tell that the essays weren't written by the students.

That's essentially what private school is.

Um no. How provincial... and nasty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so full of privilege. You know that most students don’t have parents paying for prep and coaching, right? You think everyone is doing it because you are in a bubble.

+1

Instead of trying to eliminate the essay - how about everyone just come to the realization that the process is not based on merit. How about just facing reality?

[Anonymous]

^^^
Actually I'll revise to say - how about just coming to the realization that there is more than one definition of merit?

[Anonymous]

Or hey, how about placing a value on education in the family and working hard and achieving and not conjuring up a thousand excuses as to why your child ends up at clown college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who says they put a lot of weight on it?

Why not also toss out GPA (maybe they had a tutor) or SAT/ACT scores because they may have prepped?

Admissions departments aren't grading them the way a teacher would, they are looking to see what the student can reveal about him or herself or how they think.

If your essay was slapped together quickly, with or without help, it will show.

The difference is basically no one's kid is getting tutored for every subject through all four years of high school. And even SAT tutoring can only really raise a score by so much. But it is entirely possible for someone else to completely write an applicant's essay without a college knowing about it. And for what it's worth, when my husband was in college, he wrote an essay for his girlfriend who was still in HS, and she got into UVA with it, so I'm not really buying this idea that colleges can really tell that the essays weren't written by the students.

Um, my child goes to private and there are kids there that have daily tutors for all subjects. When you have $, you can do that.

Tutors typically charge $70/hour. Are there really that many kids whose parents are paying for $280 daily for 4 hours of tutoring?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This scandal proves that SAT scores can be rigged and can’t be trusted. And eliminate the essays. We all know is gpa’s are too varied to be particularly helpful. So college should be open to all comers. And free.

Not really. This guy actually bribed college board official into changing kids answers. I can't imagine that there is much of that going on. The employees doing this were taking a huge risk, that most people would not be willing to take, and most people wouldn't have the balls to offer a bribe to these people in the first place.

Ok but add to that all the evidence that proves or strongly suggests that test prep advantages absolutely go to the wealthy.

But it's also been showing that on average, test prep only increases scores by 100 points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nah.

My kid's essay was sweet. He sounded like a kid and he described his oddball hobby and how it matters to him.

I think it helped his application. Why should the quirky lose the one bit of individuality?

It is the beyond-reason test prep that is the bigger worry.

Because anyone can pretend to be quirky if they think that angle will be advantageous to them. And if they can't come across as quirky they can get a better writer to come across as quirky for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the kid who had a tutor for every class and summer school. That is a HIGH motivated child. Very rare for that age group.

Met a lot of kids like that at HPY in the 80s, then observed it as a parent. The idea is to get ahead on all the hard classes of its a repeat. Nearly impossible not to have a high GPA. Kids were not highly motivated. It just the way the family did things. They did not even know it was weird until maybe 10th grade. Why are all these kids enrolled in summer school at the wrong big 3 when they could take it at their own school and no one is putting it on their transcript.

If they are enrolled in summer school, then how are they doing some enriching activity that will pad their resume?

[Anonymous]

This hysteria happens EVERY year around this time; it's stoked by the media for web hits and eyeballs. Nothing will change. Colleges do what they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who says they put a lot of weight on it?

Why not also toss out GPA (maybe they had a tutor) or SAT/ACT scores because they may have prepped?

Admissions departments aren't grading them the way a teacher would, they are looking to see what the student can reveal about him or herself or how they think.

If your essay was slapped together quickly, with or without help, it will show.

This is what bothers me about essays. What judgments are admissions people making about the student? It seems so judgy and random (e.g. one student might write about some interesting life experiences, another writes about something else but has also had interesting life experiences--just didn't write about them, and an admissions panel deems only the first one worthy of admission, all things being equal. Or vice versa. This one is more creative. This one had hardship. This one is funny. These are just one essay in a kid's life and unless horribly written or offensive, I agree it doesn't make sense to give it weight. And as evidence of excellent writing, like the other posters said, how do admissions know it's legit).

Another issue for my DC is that DC writes like an adult, with an impressive vocabulary--DC is not showing off, just happens to have facility with language and enjoys writing. I've heard that the essay has to sound like a teenager wrote it. Will some admissions person think DC got help? Or find fault for not sounding like a typical teenager? I fear that's how they think.

Exactly what I've wondered before. Like yours, my kids all write beautifully. They just have an incredible knack for writing and using extensive vocabulary. They also love reading, so it's not surprising. When I hear that admissions committees want to hear "an authentic teenage voice" in the essays, I wonder if my kids should dumb themselves down or the adcoms will think their essays were written by adults or plagiarized! It's very frustrating to think they won't believe a teenager wrote the essay if it isn't full of stereotypical "teenage speak".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oxbridge makes you submit a graded essay from actual school coursework.

Now THIS I could get behind.